You sea! I resign myself to you also—I guess what you mean, I behold from the beach your crooked inviting fingers, I believe you refuse to go back without feeling of me, We must have a turn together, I undress, hurry me out of sight of the land, Cushion me soft, rock me in billowy drowse, Dash me with amorous wet, I can repay you. Sea of stretch'd ground-swells, Sea breathing broad and convulsive breaths, Sea of the brine of life and of unshovell'd yet always-ready graves, Howler and scooper of storms, capricious and dainty sea, I am integral with you, I too am of one phase and of all phases. Partaker of influx and efflux I, extoller of hate and conciliation, Extoller of amies and those that sleep in each others' arms. I am he attesting sympathy, (Shall I make my list of things in the house and skip the house that supports them?) I am not the poet of goodness only, I do not decline to be the poet of wickedness also. What blurt is this about virtue and about vice? Evil propels me and reform of evil propels me, I stand indifferent, My gait is no fault-finder's or rejecter's gait, I moisten the roots of all that has grown. Did you fear some scrofula out of the unflagging pregnancy? Did you guess the celestial laws are yet to be work'd over and rectified? I find one side a balance and the antipodal side a balance, Soft doctrine as steady help as stable doctrine, Thoughts and deeds of the present our rouse and early start. This minute that comes to me over the past decillions, There is no better than it and now. What behaved well in the past or behaves well to-day is not such a wonder, The wonder is always and always how there can be a mean man or an infidel.
Afterword
The French poet, diplomat, and Nobel laureate Saint-John Perse (1887-1975) shared Whitman’s birthday—May 31st—and much more: an island childhood; an expansive vision; a long poetic line (though Perse was careful to distinguish his metrical intricacies from Whitman’s free verse); an affection for scientific vocabulary; a love of history and movement, enumeration and renewal, nature and the elements, especially the sea. Indeed Perse’s masterpiece, Amers (Seamarks), may be read as a meditation on the twenty-second section of “Song of Myself”—a book-length essay on what it means to be “integral” with the sea, to partake of “influx and efflux,” to ebb and flow and surge into every corner of life. It is difficult to sound Perse’s oceanic depths without also hearing Whitman’s “Sea breathing broad and convulsive breaths”—which are perhaps the true units of measure for both poets. For the tidal motions of the sea, like the movements of the mind in deep reflection, in the heat of desire, in bewilderment and pain, point to the vastness of the universe, which was for these poets a source of endless curiosity.
Once I watched sea lions swimming at the Central Park Zoo, twirling slowly underwater in the tank built for them, gliding around and around on a winter afternoon, then surfacing and diving and leaping over the rocks, and I felt in my body a kind of grace, which from my intuition about the forces of nature shaping life and my reading of Whitman and Perse made me think that we are connected in ways that we will never understand. I knew in my skin how to stay warm on the coldest day and hold my breath for a long time; how to gauge the effects of different phases of the moon; how to rock “in billowy drowse” and repay the gifts that love bestows on us.
C.M.
Question
What does Whitman mean when he tells us that “evil propels” him and “reform of evil propels” him, and that he sands “indifferent” to the distinction? How can both the evil itself and the “reform” of that evil fuel this poem? Who decides what is “evil” in this world, and who decides which “evils” need to be “reformed”? Are some people’s “evils” other people’s virtues? What happens when the actions that some people believe will get you to heaven turn out to be the same actions that other people believe will land you in hell?